1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to method and means for navigation and selection of information at a terminal device having a display that can display only part of the complete information.
2. Background of the Invention
There is a rapid increase of the use of portable tools such as mobile telephones, personal digital assistants (PDA), electronic notebooks, hand held computers, and other electronic hand held devices. It is common that a user of such a device may select from a range of selectable applications like calendar and address book. Usually, these applications have been implemented locally at the terminal device having processing and storage means for execution of application software. The necessary steps to locate and run an application have been quite simple and usually involve browsing through a few simple text menus. However, the development of wireless technologies, e.g. GPRS (General Packet Radio System) and broadband wireless technologies like UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) allows a user to access complex applications provided through access to a data network node. The range of applications increases drastically and the problem of navigation and selection becomes an essential topic in the design of intuitive and effective user interfaces. To start an application a user is normally required to operate various controls for navigation and selection of an object that represents the application. A control may, e.g., be implemented as a button, a joystick, a thumb-wheel, a pointing device. Usually such controls affect a type of cursor that can be moved to any displayed selectable object. The selected object is then executed by operating another control. A problem with commonly known methods for control of hand held terminal devices is that they are not intuitive, require several operative steps to accomplish a task, and often require the use of two hands for manipulation of the device whereas a user would prefer using one hand only.
When using services provided through a network node a sophisticated navigation may be required to locate and select an object representing a desired function. For example, the Internet provides a user with an enormous amount of linked information of which only a small part may be displayed at one time on the small display of a mobile device. Each displayed screen image may, further, contain selectable objects representing different functions or applications. It would be advantageous if a user could obtain a gross overview of the information facilitating the location of a relevant sub-domain and to expand this sub-domain in more detail. It is known that a user may sometimes be able to change the scale, e.g. font size, to obtain a better overview of the complete information. However, changing scale usually requires additional control operations e.g. activation of a scale menu and selection of a scale factor.
It is further noticed that the enormous amount of information provided e.g. on Internet or an Intranet varies extensively in type including ordinary text, graphics, images, and audio. Whereas, previously, methods and means for navigation have usually been designed with text information in mind, it would be advantageous to represent a type of information in a way that is intuitive to a user. For example, a geographical map is intuitively understood as a planar projection of a spherical surface. It is well known in the art to select a map projection adapted to specific purposes. Similarly, the book paradigm is intuitive when dealing with text information i.e. to divide the text on several pages that lay on top of each other such that a specific page can be reached by turning pages. Technologies for 3D representations may become possible on mobile devices. Much effort has been made to obtain intuitive representations of 3D computerized objects. Intuitively, a user may like to travel in any direction in a 3D world to locate and watch 3D objects from all sides. It may, thus, be advantageous to conveniently represent the information to be studied depending on type of information and user context.
There is, thus, a need for a method and arrangement facilitating navigation and selection among large amounts of information at a terminal device with a display screen that can display only part of the complete information.